Reviews

[ December 13, 2008 10:00 pm to December 14, 2008 4:00 am. December 31, 2008 10:00 pm to January 1, 2009 10:00 am. ] 1985 was a year of many firsts for me. I was born 61 days before it started so I can’t remember any of them. I imagine it was the year which included taking my first steps, my first words and my first birthday. I know the last one happened anyway.

Photos by Mary Rhiannon Pryce
Doll and the Kicks: the lead singer is as cute as a doll, and the band certainly kick ass, enough so to take away from the fact that we were in the Providence – one of the few true dives left in Brighton. O yes sticky carpets to boot.
Doll and the [...]

A strange night: we had just come from the Flawless Kicks store opening and going home seemed premature. Fancying a change, we decided to pass Digital for something different – Bez, the dancer from the Happy Mondays and Peter Hook the bassist from Joy Division / New Order.
I’m not going to say too much about [...]

“It’s better to live your dream and fail, than not to try and do it at all…”
The Sewerside Chronicles is the rave-inspired first novel by 37-year-old Brighton author Tim Lay. National Literary Prize winner in the Undiscovered Authors competition for 1997, the book has received early plaudits from drum n bass legend Goldie (“Painfully funny… [...]

I left the country to see Jeff Mills once; he never turned up, now finally I got my chance.
“a complete mistake…like George Clinton and Kraftwerk caught in an elevator, with only a sequencer to keep them company.” Is how Derrick May once described Detroit techno. The fusion of genres, technology and experimentation gave birth to [...]

I’ve not written much recently, thinking about it, I’ve not really been out too much at all. Push aside a few special nights, a techno fest in Germany and generic drinks I’ve been a bit of an old man. Since the demise of our regular beloved Stompa Phunk some months back, I’ve had a slightly [...]

Even in Brighton, there’s not much going on that can entice me out on a Monday night now I have the Real World to contend with on Tuesday mornings, but German band Whitest Boy Alive, playing one of two UK gigs on their European tour provide an exception to this rule.
In the Eagle for a [...]

Rooftop shows? Zane Lowe? Moshing in the King and Queen? It could only be the 3rd Great Escape Festival, getting bigger and better each year. This year backed by Red Stripe amongst others, it is compared to the yearly SXSW festival in Texas. A showcase of upcoming bands and solo artists all over the city. [...]

After almost killing Hot Chip’s latest album Made in the Dark by playing dangerously too much (as previously done with their previous releases), I was very much looking forward to seeing the band perform their live at the Brighton Corn Exchange.
On entrance, we faced St John Ambulance paramedics escorting young face painted new ravers’ outside [...]

More Gary Numan than the Klaxons, this band of Nottingham upstarts are definitely one to keep an eye on in 2008. Armed with “The Bears Are Coming” promo psychedelic glasses, the audience of fop haired youngsters danced to the sounds of the debut unreleased album Zarcorp from Late of the Pier
Signed by Parlophone and produced [...]